With 13 active military installations in Texas and more than 176,000 active-duty military personnel and reservists in the state, we know full well that when one member of the family serves his or her country, the whole family serves.

There are more than 1.3 million active-duty military personnel and nearly 790,000 reserves nationwide. Nearly all of us have a family member, friend or neighbor who has served.

What many of us don’t know — or don’t fully appreciate — is that military spouses relocate 10 times more frequently than their civilian counterparts. That means that each time enlisted personnel or officers are sent to a new duty station, their spouses have to find a new job. Moreover, the average child in a military family will move six to nine times before graduating from high school. That’s three times more frequently than children in nonmilitary families.

All of this can put added stress on military families, many of whom also have to deal with deployments that can last from 90 days to 15 months. Anything the civilian population can do to relieve the stress on those who serve our nation, sacrificing their precious time with family and risking their lives, should be done.

That is why we hope all Texans and our elected officials will rally behind the bipartisan Portable Certification of Spouses Act of 2019, introduced this month in the Senate and the House.

The bill, which amends the 2003 Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, provides Defense Department funds to create universal standards that improve the interstate portability of occupational licenses held by military spouses. It also reduces the burden of re-registering a small business each time a family is relocated.

Why is this so important? One in three (34%) military spouses works in a field that requires a state license to practice — they’re teachers, nurses, dentists, occupational therapists, social workers and real estate agents. They’re also doctors, lawyers, electricians and cosmetologists. All of these jobs, and scores more, require state licensing.

Thousands of military spouses are also business owners. Registering a business, whether it’s a sole proprietorship, partnership or LLC, generally requires state licensing and registration fees that can cost hundreds of dollars and take weeks, if not months, to process.

Is it any wonder then that a 2017 Defense Department survey found that a quarter of military spouses are unemployed — an alarming six times the national average of 4% that same year? As The Atlantic reported recently, that’s “nearly two and a half times the rate in the majority of the country’s most impoverished neighborhoods.”

Clearly, we can and must do better to relieve the financial strain and insecurity experienced by military families. We agree with Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., a co-sponsor of the Portable Certification of Spouses Act: “Military families already shoulder heavy loads for our country. They shouldn't also have to worry about state regulations that prevent wives or husbands from working in their own profession.”

We also agree with Cotton’s Senate colleague, Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., that passing this bill into law is “an opportunity to demonstrate to the nation that Congress can still work across the aisle to solve urgent problems.”

The financial insecurity of hundreds of thousands of military families is just that — an urgent problem. Come on Congress, and President Trump, show us you can solve it. This one bill won’t fix everything, but it’s a start.